Fast facts

Listed electronic design software firm
Altium
has advanced its plans to expand its product range and move into the potentially lucrative cloud-computing market, acquiring Australian cloud-application development company Morfik Technology. It acquired Morfik in a scrip transaction, with Altium issuing 13.3 million fully paid ordinary shares – about 14.9 per cent of outstanding shares – for 100 per cent of Morfik’s outstanding shares.

Paul Smith

M2 Telecommunications
is to expand in New Zealand through the acquisition of telecommunications business assets from emerging telco Black + White Group by its subsidiary M2NZ. The acquisition would be completed via an issue of additional shares in M2NZ to Black + White shareholders, M2 said. Thereafter, M2NZ would be 70 per cent owned by M2 and 30 per cent owned by Black + White shareholders.

Paul Smith

Former Vodafone Australia chief executive Grahame Maher has died of a heart attack at the age of 51. He ran Vodafone’s local business from 2001-05 and was appointed CEO of Vodafone Qatar in 2008.

Paul Smith

North American business software giant Oracle will buy e-commerce software company Art Technology Group for $US1 billion in cash. ATG provides merchandising, marketing, content personalisation, automated recommendation and live-help services to businesses. AFP

Google has informed users of its Gmail service that it has settled a class-action lawsuit brought against it by some users who were upset by the way the company rolled out its Buzz social-networking service. Millions of Gmail users discovered in February that their networks of Buzz “friends" were created from their own contact lists of people they corresponded with. In some cases the contact lists were made public. Instead of financial compensation to the Gmail users, Google will put $US8.5 million into an independent fund that will be used to support organisations promoting education about privacy on the web.